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Exploring how Adam, Methuselah, and Noah in the book of Genesis really lived for centuries and biological/genetic reasons why humans no longer live that long.
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[__ Science __ ] Ancient Biblical Lifespans: Did Adam Live Over 900 Years?
- Thread starter AIG.com
- Start date
- Jun 5, 2003
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From Biologos, a Christian site set up by scientists:
A casual look at the numbers in Genesis 5 seems to suggest a fairly random distribution of ages: Adam lived to be 930, Mahalalel to 895, Jared to 962, and of course the granddaddy of them all, Methuselah lived to be 969. We don’t immediately notice anything special about these numbers, so we are inclined to see them as consistent with the sorts of numbers we’d expect in a report of ages (albeit of very old people). But that’s because we think of numbers in base 10. If the numbers reported were all “round” numbers like 500 or 1000, that would give us pause and suggest to us the implausibility of all these people dying at one of these “special” ages. Perhaps we’d think there to be something more significant going on than just a straight numerical account of ages. Well it turns out that these numbers in Genesis 5 do have some peculiar characteristics when you dig a little deeper. This gets a little technical, so hold on tight!
...
The first thing more careful observation reveals about these 30 numbers is that all of them end with the digits 0, 2, 5, 7, or 9. You might not think that is too remarkable until you realize that it eliminates half of the possible numbers. It is like seeing a list of 30 numbers that are all even. We wouldn’t think that was a random distribution of numbers. In fact, the odds of getting all thirty numbers to end with just these “approved” digits in a random distribution of ages are about one in a hundred million.1 That should make us suspicious that Genesis 5 is merely giving a historical report. Something else must be going on here.
...
Sometimes people respond to this fact with despair that they can’t understand anything in the Bible. I don’t think that is the appropriate response. I believe that anyone can pick up the Bible and read it profitably. The Holy Spirit speaks to us today through Scripture, and you do not need a PhD in biblical studies in order to hear the Spirit’s voice in your life. Even if we never know for sure how genres worked in the ancient world or how long the patriarchs actually lived, we know enough to understand what God expects us to take from the text.
biologos.org
A casual look at the numbers in Genesis 5 seems to suggest a fairly random distribution of ages: Adam lived to be 930, Mahalalel to 895, Jared to 962, and of course the granddaddy of them all, Methuselah lived to be 969. We don’t immediately notice anything special about these numbers, so we are inclined to see them as consistent with the sorts of numbers we’d expect in a report of ages (albeit of very old people). But that’s because we think of numbers in base 10. If the numbers reported were all “round” numbers like 500 or 1000, that would give us pause and suggest to us the implausibility of all these people dying at one of these “special” ages. Perhaps we’d think there to be something more significant going on than just a straight numerical account of ages. Well it turns out that these numbers in Genesis 5 do have some peculiar characteristics when you dig a little deeper. This gets a little technical, so hold on tight!
...
The first thing more careful observation reveals about these 30 numbers is that all of them end with the digits 0, 2, 5, 7, or 9. You might not think that is too remarkable until you realize that it eliminates half of the possible numbers. It is like seeing a list of 30 numbers that are all even. We wouldn’t think that was a random distribution of numbers. In fact, the odds of getting all thirty numbers to end with just these “approved” digits in a random distribution of ages are about one in a hundred million.1 That should make us suspicious that Genesis 5 is merely giving a historical report. Something else must be going on here.
...
Sometimes people respond to this fact with despair that they can’t understand anything in the Bible. I don’t think that is the appropriate response. I believe that anyone can pick up the Bible and read it profitably. The Holy Spirit speaks to us today through Scripture, and you do not need a PhD in biblical studies in order to hear the Spirit’s voice in your life. Even if we never know for sure how genres worked in the ancient world or how long the patriarchs actually lived, we know enough to understand what God expects us to take from the text.
Long Life Spans in Genesis: Literal or Symbolic? - Articles
A closer look at the different uses of numbers in ancient Near Eastern literature can shed light on our understanding of the life spans of the Hebrew patriarchs.
biologos.org
Truthfrees
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- May 24, 2017
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thanks - good oint
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